Binghamton University hosted the NextFlex hybrid electronics community on April 18 for a day of expert presentations, breakout sessions on technology and manufacturing topics, and networking. Seventy-five attendees from industry, academia, and government convened to provide presentations in two technical sessions. The first focused on the enabling manufacturing and technology for additive and printed packaging and electronics integration. The second session described several applications driving the need for novel advanced packaging capabilities. Dr. Scott Miller welcomed attendees with a high-level overview of NextFlex and a brief update on the newly released manufacturing technology roadmaps. Mark Poliks, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Binghamton University, then welcomed workshop attendees to the university and introduced the opening keynote speaker, Sufi Zafar, Principal Research Staff Member, IBM TJ Watson Research Center, who emphasized the importance of technology development, specifically for advancing biosensor systems to improve human health and agriculture monitoring.
The Manufacturing and Technology session featured a keynote from Dr. Chris Striemer, Director of TAP Operations, AIM Photonics, who shared an overview of the AIM Photonics Test, Assembly and Packaging facility which is a full-flow packaging facility with a 300mm bumping line, chip-level assembly, and metrology and test capability. His talk concluded with announcements about capability expansion in both the 300mm wafer line and at the chip level, as well. Other notable talks were presented by Dr. Dan Hines, Co-Director, Raytheon-UMass Lowell Research Institute, Rafael Tudela, Technical Program Leader for Flexible and Printed Electronics, Tapecon, and Dr. Jeff Morse, Director, Advanced Print and Roll-to-Roll Manufacturing Facility, UMass Amherst.